Newbie to the awesome audiophile world

Agree on the listening advice - completely impractical and useless for probably 95% of Americans. Read a lot and listen to advice here. You have an idea of the sound you might like and, as you are new, you'll love whatever you buy. Personally I don't think the incremental improvements you get (only up to a point where there are no noticeable improvements just sonic differences) on wire and interconnects is worth anywhere near 25%. Ask around here and you'll get lots of recommendations on decently priced/budget but quality speaker wire and interconnects (I swear by Straightire.com).

Get the most bang for your buck. If you're not going to get or have an LP collection don't bother with a TT obviously. If you do have vinyl read reviews there are a ton of very value-minded good TT/cartridge combos out there, new or used. 

A decent sounding CD player (I'd feel safer buying new) can be had for a reasonable price (I swear by NAD for value).

Streaming: As a beginner you can't go wrong with Bluesound Node 2i streamer/DAC and can upgrade the DAC later. Plus Bluesound has a great phone control app. I use TIDAL as digital source.

Take into account the size and shape of your room for speakers and what placement requirements they have. Some want to be in the middle of the room and that often isn't practical. There's some great small speakers that can be paired with a good budget subwoofer (I like my Emotivas, again for value) and you'll be ecstatic. By all means get the most efficient speakers you can (above 90dB) and buy all the wpc you can afford in an amp but don't forget the current/power supply rating of an amp as well. Good hunting and welcome. 

Those B&W speakers are nice if you like. But buy used speakers.
I would get a Rega Brio integrated. Very well built and good sounding British quality. And then you will have a nice phono stage for MM cartridge and a remote. I would get a Rega RP 1 TT and Rega or Ortophon cartridge. You can probably find a Brio used and decent speakers same. I would only buy a new TT and cartridge. 

You can’t go wrong with Blue Jeans Cables LC-1 interconnects or Blue Jeans’ base speaker cables. Agree on a new TT and cartridge if you want vinyl. The Ortofon 2M Red is a great value. Getting used speakers is smart, but it will limit you to local sellers, since shipping big boxes is so expensive. So if you like what you’ve located already, go for it. But like everyone said, listen, listen, listen. I bet Atlanta has plenty of supply via Craigslist, or maybe search on Facebook for a local audio club.  I don’t know if the PS Audio Sprout fits your speaker choices, but It’s a product the company pretty much designed for someone like you, and at $600 you’d get a DAC along with it and avoid interconnects. Really, for $2000 you can get some very good sound. Good luck.

You can assemble a pretty nice system for 2 grand. Here is my suggestion:
-Speakers: wharfedale diamond 225’s (read the reviews) currently $299 use to be $449, it was selected as the budget component of the year by both stereophile and absolute sound....
-Integrated amp: marantz pm5005 (underated/ great amp/all analog) $499
-turntable: pro-ject x1/ includes sumiko Rainier cartridge (michael fremer calls it the best under $1000 turntable) $899
-CD player: marantz cd5005 $399/or hd CD-1 on sale $399 @ music direct...
-Dac: musical fidelity v90 dac $299, a class a component in stereophile...

All this can be assembled for $2395, even less as sometimes you can find the above on sale. The diamond 225’s as mentioned were originally $449, Music Direct has then @ $299. Please read the stereophile review of them as well as the absolute sound review. They will be much more enjoyable in the long run than the B&W’s, which I find fatiguing after long listening....to replace the marantz integrated mentioned above, I would suggest the audiolab 6000a integrated. It contains a very good dac, so you could forgo the above mentioned MF dac and have it all in one chassis. The 6000a is $899 but can be had for less, sometimes on sale for $699-$799....

i have been on this journey for a little over 2 years. speakers requiring
amp requiring receiver upgrade, tube preamp, dedicated Dac, cd player,
Cd player mod, tube preamp mod, speaker upgrade, cable upgrade, new preamp. blah,blah blah. sounds really great now.
if I was staring again?
start with speakers again, but with consideration to room size and volume you like to or can listen to. Some inexpensive setups can sound great at 
modest volume, but crank it up to 'party level' and it becomes a mess.
if most of your listening is digital / streaming then build your system around a hard drive and good DAC. there is so much music out there - to
build a music library around cd's seems unpractical.   
there is a lot of great stuff on canuck audiomart and similar. See if you can trial stuff. Talk to different audio shops about pairings. take your time and be very wary of industry reviews - have you ever read a negative one? Industry reviews are a neat way to discover new music however.
Chow